House votes to halt renaming of Confederate parks

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- The House has voted to approve a bill to ban local governments from renaming parks or monuments honoring historical figures from Tennessee's military past -- including from the Civil War.

The chamber voted 69-22 on Monday in favor of the bill sponsored by Republican Rep. Steve McDaniel of Parker's Crossroads.

Several Democrats objected to the measure that they said would stop the renaming of parks named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Confederate general admired by many for fiercely defending the South in the Civil War but disdained by others for a slave-trading past and ties to the early Ku Klux Klan.

McDaniel said his bill would not retroactively affect a decision by the Memphis City Council to strip Forrest's name from a downtown park and rename it Health Sciences Park.